Poke'-G Warlord

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日本 Yet Again...

Whelp folks, as per the title I find myself in the land of the rising sun for the third and longest time yet. I've been here as a psuedo-tourist, an exchange student, and now I'm employed here as a full fledged immigrant.

I have a salary... damn that's bizzare to consider.

Anyways, this time around I am in a little place called Hamada in the prefecture of Shimane. To the geographically illeterate of America, I'm on the southern tip of the main island, seen here:

The green arrow would be my apartment building. More on that in a moment, first I guess I should recap me summer.

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Holy shit, summer. I went all over the place and did many things. Went all over the state in one weekend to attend a few fellow BG Alumni's grad parties, both of which were worth the travel. RP'd quite a bit, which was fun to roleplay again although having scenarios taken out of the players' hands is never my cup of tea.

I've also been working on and off on a website, to help a friend and at the same time practice PHP. Regardless of whether or not the end product will be needed, at least I'll be getting practice in. Hopefully someday I'll have stuff to show, but for now, all I can say is linking up Apache, PHP, and MySQL is a gigantic pain in the butt.

But enough text, why type when I can show you my adventures!

The house for the early part of the summer was under much construction and remodeling. We managed to live through the mess, obviously.

Went to see "Evil Dead: The Musical" with friends. The show is interactive with splatter zones recieving much blood from the saga's trademark gratuitous violence. I had a very unlucky seat.

...or lucky I guess, depending on one's point of view.

There was also much hanging out with many friends, with activities like mini-golf, drive-in movies, bowling, and even water balloons!

There was also Saker being Saker.

And yes,that is a comical stack of eight pancakes.

Jeff splurged on fireworks this year for the 4th, and Godzilla once again took on the army. There's a video too, if he who took it ever decides to upload/do anything with it.

And last but not least, Saker and I hit Cedar Point before I left. Ho. Ly. Shit, was that ever fun. We managed to hit... 12... of the supossed 17 coasters in the park, four of them repeatedly.

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And now for the part that I guess people will most care about:Being back in Japan. Hello Tax Building, I remember you from last time I was in Shinjuku.

Funny story actually... last time when I was lost in Shinjuku, I passed that building. At that moment a tour bus on my left was letting out, and I took a moment to take in the ritzy, ritzy hotel. So ritzy that people like you and me don't stay in them.

Fast forward two years and guess where the above photo was taken from.

Life's fun, ain't it?

So I got in on Aug 2nd for orientation, which during the day was the dreariest, most useless formal gathering you could imagine. But at least the nightlife was fun. Night one fellow BG alum Sara (also one of my apartment mates last year), myself, and a few others wandered around Shinjuku, and I got to see many sights from before. It was strangely odd to be back in and be familiar with a popular area I thought I might never see again.

The above photo was Shimane prefecture's night out at karaoke.

This is my apartment, literally the one room pictured, a kitchen, bathroom and shower. That photo there is the majority of my living space (but it's a bit tidier now). Laundry without a drier has been fun, especially considering I don't have a balcony.

And sadly kids, I'm out of time. With no internet yet, I must rely on net cafes for decent LJ access (mobile version sucks). However I can get to my gmail, facebook, and phone mail with my new cell phone.

The cav is still out of commission too? That sucks. It's probably better to fix that than the Cruiser yet again.

Oh, and I'd try looking into cell phones in the near future. The two biggies are Docomo and SoftBank (nearly identical to the Verizon and AT&T war stateside), along with smaller players like AU. Find out what your host family uses, and keep in mind that if you get AU, we can do AU's version of My Circle. They're the only ones who do that.

Also, FYI, Sara mentioned getting an iPhone, which means she's with SoftBank (only company who support it).